cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46788659
Looking at how much conflict natural resource-rich countries (oil, gold, diamonds…) seem to attract, I wonder whether such wealth is more a curse than a blessing.
Many regions with scarce natural resources, adapted & perform very well. Some of the richest are examples (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore…)
Looks to me like the greed for them attracts conflicts: civil wars, invasions etc. Cultural, ethnic, religious reasons often just seem to be used to cover it.
Plus all the environmental destruction / pollution that come with the extraction & processing.
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And those natural resources are used for what? Smartphones that addict and cause depression. Flock cameras that watch you and report to Palantir. Data centers that are used for AI propaganda and disinformation campaigns to manipulate our views. Chemicals that poison our crops and end up in our water sources. Modern industry is mostly bad for humanity.
sources I think transportation is a good use of oil, ores & diamonds have plenty of good use cases (e.g. chips used in medical devices, climate satellites etc.)
Modern Industry & the system behind it are the definitely the problem. If we got rid of planned obsolescence alone, the issues would reduce dramatically.
Something something capitalism
Thanks, it’s such an interesting read :))
This reminds me of the old book series Pern. But I don’t know if I should spoiler a 50 year old series.
Haven’t read it, would you recommend it? :) Otherwise spoiler away XD
I enjoyed the series! It starts out like a fantasy because dragons. But then it turns out to be sci fi because the planet is populated by colonist humans who got there on a ship generations ago. It was picked because there weren’t enough resources that capitaliam was interested, so an intentional community settled in to get away from all that. But it went off the rails.
Pern
It’s this one right? Looking good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern
100% they are. I would rather have them than not. Europe has em and so does the us and canada and australia. I think the resources bring conflict is circumstance as every place has them if they are of any significant size. It could be being small land wise or population wise with lots of easy to get resources might tend to lead to that. Places like cuba don’t have it easier for lack of resources nor japan despite its success.
Well some have way more “valueable” ones than others. I don’t believe it’s a size related thing (considering Africa, South America, Eastern Europe…). Here is a link somebody sent me, seems to be an actual theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
yeah I am aware of the theory im just not sure how much credence I feel it has because it feels like cherry picking. the reason “bad” places have resources is because of how common having resources is. I mean saudi arabi while a monarchy is also a welfare state. They are dicks to low level labor they bring in but for the natives it was not exactly a curse. When you look at oil it seems a lot is related to how well you play ball.
